Exercise putties have found widespread use for manipulative therapeutic purposes in recent years. Such putties are described, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,693,689 issued to Robert M. Gibbon on Dec. 2, 1997 which also describes a kit for packaging putties with different colors and varying degrees of stiffness. Basically, the putties described in said patent comprise a first mass of putty which is a reaction product of polysiloxane and a boron or a tin-containing compound, and at least one additional mass of putty which is a reaction product of a polysiloxane and either (a) a boron or a tin-containing compound, (b) an uncured polyorganodisiloxane gum, or (c) mixtures of (a) and (b). The additional mass has a color and stiffness different from the first mass, and the resulting combined mass has a color and stiffness intermediate the two masses and includes uncured polydiorganosiloxane gum.
The use of polysiloxane-boron compounds for physical therapy is also disclosed in other prior art patents such as, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 3,677,997 referred to in U.S. Pat. No. 5,319,021, the latter patent also disclosing that modified polysiloxane-boron material is useful for exercising and physical therapy.
Notwithstanding a plethora of patents and publications disclosing a variety of putties which are useful for hand exercise and therapy, the putties presently used have been either expensive to produce or have other deficiencies which have limited their applications.
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to provide a putty which is particularly well suited as an exercise putty for therapeutic purposes.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such putties with different degrees of stiffness (or hardness) for therapeutic hand exercises by patients of different strengths.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a method of making such therapeutic exercise putties.
The foregoing and other objects and advantageous features of the present invention will be more fully comprehended and appreciated from the ensuing detailed description of the invention and the illustrative examples.